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Scholarly journal articles are some of the most-used resources students seek when conducting research and writing papers. With more than 60,000 electronic journals and nearly 12,000 print serials subscriptions across campus, these resources are abundant, current, reliable sources that are easy to access – most of the time. What happens when you can’t find a link to an electronic journal that we should have access to? What does it mean when something is in the ALF? What do all these dates, links, and database names mean? Sometimes figuring out what kind of access and holdings the library has for certain journal titles can be a tricky business. This blog post should help make finding that one perfect article a little easier.

Let’s say you’ve found a citation for an article from 1995 in the journal Leisure Studies, but aren’t able to access the article through IUCat or OneSearch. One way to find this article is to search for it by name. The Libraries provide a page where you can search for specific journals by title. A search for Leisure Studies gives you these results:

According to this information, the library only has this title available online full-text from 1997 to present. If you want an article between these dates, all you have to do is click on the “Taylor & Francis Online” link and you’ll have instant access to all issues of this title the library currently subscribes to.

Your citation, however, is for an article from 1995, so your online access is denied. Never fear, all hope is not lost!

Your next step is to check IUCat for print holdings. On the IUCat search screen, click “Begins With (Browse)” on the right-hand column. You can then search Leisure Studies as a periodical title.

Leisure Studies will be your second search result. If you click on this title, then click on the entry for “Leisure studies : the journal of the Leisure Studies Association,” you will see the catalog record. This catalog entry tells you which years and volumes the library owns in print, as well as where they are located on campus. If you scroll down, you will find that you can access your article from 1995 by going to the HPER library where it is currently available in print.

Great news! If you’re interested in older issues from 1982-1994, you can request to have the issue sent to Wells Library from the Auxiliary Library Facility (ALF). More information about this process can be found at the “Request from ALF page.”

What happens if you can’t find the article full-text online or in print through IUCat? There’s always the option of an Interlibrary Loan! If you request an ILL, a library that owns the item will send it to IU, where you can access it digitally or print it at your convenience. The length of time required for this service varies, but generally, articles are accessible within 3-5 business days. How do you request an ILL? It’s simple. First, find the link that says “IU Link – Check for Availability,” like this.

You will see this screen, where you can click “Request the item via IU-Bloomington Document Delivery Service (ILL).

From there, just login with your IU username and passphrase, fill out the request form, and voila! The article will soon be yours!

Hopefully these tips will make it a little easier to find the perfect article for that research paper or project. If you get stuck, please don’t hesitate to Ask a Librarian. Happy researching!

For better or worse, religion is a fundamental component of nearly all world civilizations, large or small. Studying a culture’s religious practices, beliefs, and institutions can be contextually informative about the society as a whole. Below are some tools that will help you in your search for Religious Studies resources available at Indiana University.

As you probably noticed, there are lots of Religious Studies resources at IU. Many of the world’s religions are included. In case you are feeling a bit overwhelmed by all of the information, here are some of the best databases dedicated to Islam, Christianity and Judaism, the world’s three largest religions.

Islam

Index Islamicus is one of the most comprehensive religious databases with an emphasis on Islam. In fact, it is the primary index to literature on Islam, the Middle East and Muslim areas of Asia and Africa, and Muslim minorities elsewhere. It includes citations to over 2,000 journals, conference proceedings, monographs, and book reviews from 1906 to present.

The Oxford Islam Studies Online is another fine Islam-specific database. It features authoritative reference content and scholarly commentary on Islamic history, the faith and concepts of Islam, the people, tenets and practices, politics, culture, and more.

Christianity

While its coverage includes many religions, ATLA Religion Database is simply the best when it comes to Christianity. Generally speaking, ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials is a combined index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion. Coverage in the database begins in 1949, and there is indexing for some journal titles back into the nineteenth century. Full text is available for many electronic articles and book reviews in over 100 journals.

Regarding ATLA Religion Database’s coverage of Christianity, I would like to bring your attention to its Scriptures section:
From here, you can view articles related to any book of the Bible by simply clicking the book in which you are interested. This is just one of the many cool features available from ATLA Religion Database.

Judaism

Encyclopedia Judaica
The Encyclopedia Judaica is the authoritative reference resource for Jewish knowledge and life up to the present day. It is designed for both Jewish and non-Jewish readers and covers nine main subject categories: Contemporary Jewry, Education and modern scholarship, History, Jews in world culture, Judaism: practice, Judaism: thought, Language and literature, and Miscellaneous topics.

Of course, there are many more religions in the world, but I hope that the examples provided here give you an idea of the many great resources made available by your friendly librarians at Indiana University.

If you would like further assistance with your Religious Studies research or any other research topic, do not hesitate to Ask a Librarian.

Now is the time of the semester when we students really start digging into our workload. This means locating assigned readings and doing our own research, often in journals since journals contain the latest and juiciest happenings in their respective fields.

But how do you find out if Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) has “the journal” you are looking for?

Follow these simple directions!

Check IUCAT for print, microform, and electronic formats of the journal.

1. Go to the library’s home page and click on the gold box that says IUCAT in the upper right corner. IUCAT is Indiana University’s online catalog.

2. Once in IUCAT, select Periodical Title Search from the options at the left.

3. On the Periodical Title Search page…

click the Exact radio button if you know the exact title of the journal (otherwise leave Keyword selected).
4. Enter the title.
5. Click Search.
And here is a tip: Exclude the article “The” at the begining of a journal’s title.

Voilá! You now know if IUB has the journal you want.
If IUB does not have that journal you want, remember that many times you can get articles through interlibrary loan — just ask a librarian if you need help.

Are you a total blog-head? (The evidence certainly suggests so.) Do you stay connected to blogs and other resources through RSS feeds? You may be thrilled to learn about journal alerts! Journal alerts are RSS feeds generated by EBSCO about the publications available within its many databases. These journal alerts keep you informed about new articles from journals of your choosing.

For example, do you love the International Journal on Digital Libraries? If so, you could set up an RSS feed solely about new material from this journal! Or maybe you crave Newsweek? You could quickly set up a journal alert to receive all of Newsweek‘s new articles in an RSS feed.

Here’s how to do it. First, set up an account with EBSCO by logging into an EBSCO database, such as Academic Search Premier. Click “Sign In” in the upper toolbar, and then follow the “Create a New Account” link. Once you are logged in to your new account, browse or search for publications you love! There is a “Publications” link in the top tool bar. Once you locate a publication of interest, click the RSS icon (the small, orange square) next to its title. This is where the magic happens! EBSCO will send an email to the address you provide. This email will contain an RSS feed URL. Simply copy and paste that URL into your RSS reader (Google Reader, etc.) and save the alert! It’s that simple. Soon you will be receiving alerts about new content.

Similar services are available with JSTOR, Project Muse, and other journal aggregators. Please explore this feature in all places it is available, and use it to enhance your learning experience!

What would you say if someone asked you, “Who do you think is going to win March Madness?” Would you stare blankly at the person, or would you immediately answer, “I’ve got Butler winning it all!” Like so many other sporting events, the NCAA Basketball Tournament draws big audiences every year. This year is no different with many dramatic wins by underdog teams. Whether you love the game or love to hate it, there is no denying the influence of sports on cultures around the world.

If you want to learn more about sports history in America and throughout the world, here are several resources you may find helpful!

Leisure Tourism:The Leisure Tourism database is an index to the literature of more than 400 international publications in the area of travel, leisure, and hospitality. It includes references to books, journals, conference proceedings, bulletins, reports, and news items. Coverage begins in 1976 and continues to the present.

eHRAF World Cultures: This is a cross-cultural database that contains information on all aspects of cultural and social life. Use it to find information on a particular culture or cultural trait, or for making cross-cultural comparisons. This database includes thousands of pages of text from books, articles, and unpublished manuscripts as well as English translations of foreign texts available exclusively in HRAF.

Kinesiology Abstracts: This includes an index and full texts of dissertations and master’s theses in health, physical education, recreation, exercise and sports sciences, sport history, and related issues.

SPORTDiscus with Full Text: This database covers everything from sports, physical fitness, sports medicine, sports science, physical education, coaching, training, sport administration, sport law and legislation, and disabled athletes, just to name a few!

If the current unrest in various countries around the world has caught your attention, you should know that the library can meet many requests for information about current news and detailed information about foreign countries. Using news sources such as those you find freely available online is only one way of getting information about current events or foreign news; if you’re doing research for a paper about such a topic, you’ll need to consult more varied and in-depth sources.

Fortunately, for online databases with content about current events, Herman B Wells Library has prepared a special page that you can access here.

If you’re interested in news from foreign sources, be sure to consult these two databases: World News Digest and World News Connection. World News Digest covers material from 1940 to the present and provides summaries of world news stories. Many articles include maps, charts, graphs, or historic photographs that may be useful in any assignments you may be completing. (Be sure to cite your sources; World News Digest provides pre-written MLA and APA citations for all content.)

The navigation of World News Digest is simple and can lead to finding unexpected trails of research. Once a search has been performed using the search box at the left side of the screen, the returned results are divided into four tabs.These will help you focus in on what you’re looking for.

WND SearchWND Results

World News Connection provides full-text English translations of foreign news supplied by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (a former division of the Central Intelligence Agency). The search feature uses buttons that allow you to construct searches using the operators AND, OR, NOT, and NEAR with your keywords. Another helpful feature of World News Connection is the title list. You can browse all the titles indexed in the database from the “browse titles” tab at the top of the screen. They have a large selection of newspapers from North Africa and the Middle East going back at least to 1995 and, in many cases, back to 1974.

WNC BrowseSearch 1Search 2

Another fine database for use when researching general current events or basic information about other countries is Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus. This database is not the easiest to use, but there is quality content for those willing to navigate around. After taking the link from the library’s page, users must check the appropriate box in order to search Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus. After that, you can use a collapsible sidebar to navigate around topics or use a graphical guide to sort through articles about various topics.

CIRSP SidebarCIRSP Graphic Interface

If you use Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus, be sure to notice the ‘Print Email Save’ link at the bottom of every page. This allows you to do just what it says. You’ll be able to keep track of what you found and organize your research with this feature.

Print Email Save

If you’re doing research or just reading for recreation, challenge yourself to go beyond those basic online news sources. The time put into utilizing the library’s current events databases is well worth it. If you want more information, don’t forget that you can contact librarians by chat; or, come and speak with us about your research in both the East and West Towers of Wells Library.

Latin America has certainly been in the headlines lately, from the dramatic rescue of Chile’s 33 miners to the Nobel Prize for Literature, awarded to Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa. The region’s surging economies have also been in the spotlight: the cover story of the September 11th-17th issue of The Economist, for example, titled “Nobody’s backyard,” discusses Latin America’s recent economic boom.

If you’re looking to keep up with news from Latin America—and improve your language skills while you’re at it—be sure to check out the international newspapers available through LexisNexis Academic.

If you already know of a newspaper you’d like to read, you can type its name into the “Source Title” box from the “Easy Search” screen. If LexisNexis finds a match, it will appear automatically. For example, if you wanted to follow coverage of the miners in El Mercurio, Chile’s newspaper of record, you could simply type “mineros” into the search box and use “mercurio” as your “Source Title.”

If you don’t have a particular newspaper in mind, LexisNexis lets you limit your news search to sources in Spanish or Portuguese, including major European papers such as El País. Just remember, if you want to search for stories about the miners in Portuguese, be sure to type “mineiros chilenos” instead of “mineros chilenos”!

For in-depth research about Latin America, however, you will ultimately want to go behind the headlines. Here are two resources to help you do just that.

The Handbook of Latin American Studies (HLAS), a project of the Library of Congress, has been called “the oldest and most prestigious area studies bibliography in the world.” Although the online version of HLAS provides information that is somewhat more up to date, its user interface is a bit of a nightmare. The print version of HLAS, available in the Wells Reference Collection (call number Z1601 .H2), provides a much better overview of recent scholarship. Every year, an international team of scholars carefully selects over 5,000 books, journal articles, and electronic resources for inclusion in the Handbook, which is organized by academic discipline. Each section begins with a contextual essay discussing recent trends in the field, followed by an annotated bibliography of noteworthy publications. Although HLAS is published annually, its volumes alternate each year between the humanities and social sciences.

Researching Brazil/Pesquisa no Brasil is an exciting in-house resource developed by IU’s own Latin American studies librarian, Luis González. For those looking to find their bearings in the field of Brazilian studies, especially Brazilian history, this is an essential tool. The Researching Brazil bibliographic database includes over 80 academic journals published in Brazil, many of which are not indexed elsewhere. The site also features a Google Custom Search box that zeroes in on the latest scholarship from Brazil (which has become a world leader in open-access journal publishing).

The world of citing can be scary-do I use MLA? APA? Chicago? What if I am in a science discipline-how do I cite my sources? Citing is also one of the most important components of research in the academic world, and the difference between doing it right and wrong can be the difference between a successful career in academia, and being kicked out of school for plagiarism.

But not to worry! The Reference Department staff has you covered for all your citation needs. On our reference department homepage you can check How To Cite, which will provide you with guides reference staff has created as a quick “how to” guide to citing sources. It offers MLA, APA, and Chicago guides to citing, three of the most common citation styles in the academic world. These guides are in PDF format.

Are you a political science major? Perhaps you’re working with government documents and don’t know the first place to start to cite such complex documents. Not to worry-we have government information citation guides specifically designed for you, explaining how to cite everything from microforms to electronic documents to government websites.

If you’re doing more intensive research, and are looking for help with a citation program such as Endnote or Zotero, we have resources for you to use, as well as other bibliographic software that can aid your research and citations.

Lastly, the Reference Department has a wide array of books to offer even further citation help. Below are just a couple books that we have that can assist you with your citation needs.

A Manual For Writers of Research, Papers, Theses and Dissertations. Located in the Reference Collection, call number: LB2369 .T8 2007

MLA Style Manual. Located in the Reference Collection, call number PN147 .A28 1985

There are a host of other books, so check these out. And, as always, don’t forget to ask a librarian!

February is Black History Month: the time we commemorate important events and members of the African Diaspora and the significant effects that they have had on our society. The library has tons of resources on black history, whether you are interested in trivia, general information, or more substantial research.

Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass (2006), Paul Finkelman, Editor in Chief: In three volumes, the reader is provided with windows into the internal history of black peoples and communities from the arrival of the first slave ship and the external relationship with whites that informs the larger American history until the death of Frederick Douglass.
(This item is available in the Reference Reading Room; LC Call Number: E 185 .E545 2006)

Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History: The Black Experience in the Americas, 2nd edition (2006), edited by Colin A. Palmer: With articles on topics ranging from the West Indies Federation to Venus and Serena Williams, this six volume set takes a look at the progression of black history and culture and recent figures and events in North America and abroad.
(This item is available in the Undergraduate Services Reference Collection and the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center Library; LC Call Number: E 185 .E54 2006)

Black Culture and Thought makes available a collection of non-fiction published works of African American leaders, including interviews, journal articles, speeches, essays, pamphlets, letters, etc.

Black Short Fiction and Folklore covers offer more than 8,000 short stories and folktales, ranging thematically from oral traditions that date back many hundreds of years to contemporary tales of modern life by writers from the African Diaspora.

These resources provide a range of information on this growing field of research and inquiry. Dig in!

Finding book reviews has never been easier. Through the Libraries you have access to numerous resources that will save you considerable time and effort. An excellent starting point for reviews from 1965 to present is Book Review Index Online. You may search by author, date, illustrator, reading level, source, reviewer, title, and title of review.

For titles written in English between 1905 and 1982, you should look at Book Review Digest Retrospective. With coverage for over 350,00 titles, you may see summaries and excerpts from book reviews, as well as citations to reviews for both adult and juvenile fiction and non-fiction.

Of course, you are also able to search many of our popular, general databases like Academic Search Premier and JSTOR for reviews. When in Academic Search Premier, look to the advanced search and mark “book review” under document type. JSTOR similarly requires you to check the “review” box in the advanced search. Remember, too, to enter the author name and book title as full-text.

For books in languages other than English, for a specific subject, or for reviews from earlier than 1900, please see Book Reviews: A Research Guide from the Reference Department.